Triage
by Alex Foster
Summary: Still on the run ten years in the future, John administers some first aid to Cameron down in Mexico. Second in the 2017 series


Title: Triage

Author: Alex Foster

Category: Friendship

Rating: PG

Summary: Still on the run ten years in the future, John administers some first aid to Cameron down in Mexico. Second in the 2017 series

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Fox. No money is being made and no infringement is intended.

Author's Notes: I had originally wanted this to be lighter in tone, but a very hectic week forced me to cut out several things and alter the mood. This is also my entry into the Taming the Muse writing challenge. The prompt was the phrase Necrotizing Fasciitis. Thank you very much for reading.

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_Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything._

-Muhammad Ali

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None of this was necessary, Cameron knew. Resting one hand against John's waist as he supported her left side, she could detect his high level of stress. Even without the epidermal scan though she could see his intense frustration. Skin around his eyes had tightened noticeably and his lips compressed into a thin line.

One of John's lieutenants once told her that when the commander was angry the air around him crackled and people knew instinctively to stay out of his way. She could not detect any atmospheric changes around him now, but the tense muscles of his back and hostile body language said his mood exceeded what was necessary for the situation.

"Open the door now," he said, not to her but the short man walking half a step ahead of them. John kept the 9mm held between himself and Cameron, concealed from any passersby on the dusty Mexican street. Cameron could feel the butt of the gun pressing against her hip.

The likelihood of him shooting the short doctor was not great, she knew. John sometimes did things like this—overreact to minor situations—but rarely did he kill needlessly. This man they just surprised walking to his car fell underneath Sarah Connor's definition of innocent life. And John followed his mother's code almost to the letter.

To casual eyes, she and John were just another couple walking closely together down the border town street. It was late in the afternoon and tourists mixed easily with the local dinner crowd. If anyone peered closely though they would notice her dark jeans were wet with blood and the leg nearest to John didn't bend correctly with each step.

The doctor's hand shook as he tried to line up key with lock. "_Please_," he said in Spanish, "_there are no drugs. I'm a dentist. No drugs here_!"

"_Shut up and get inside_." This John like her other one spoke flawless Spanish. She could not recall that particular line from the Wizard of Oz, however.

The small office was dark with shades drawn over its two windows. Lime green linoleum, chipped and stained from long life, covered the waiting room's floor. Pushed against the far wall were half a dozen plastic chairs. Beyond the front desk Cameron saw one door marked '_office_' and another labeled '_exam_.' Her skin sensors read the indoor temperature beyond normal human comfort level without the central air conditioning running.

"Wait here," John said to her. Closing the front door behind them, he left the lights off and grabbed the doctor's arm. The gun was in plain sight now. "You're with me, doc."

Cameron leaned against the wall and watched the two men walk first to the exam room and then the office. John's stress had reduced since leaving the crowded street, she noted. That was not a positive sign, however, because it meant he was only thinking about her damage and not crossing the border. Their mission was complete, target terminated, and returning to their safehouse should be the primary focus now.

A memory fired deep in her subconscious. John—both that she knew—did things like this for people close to him. The first one often told her about how as a child he went back to rescue his mother although hunted by a terminator at the time. He spoke of it proudly while she could only see the danger to him.

Cameron had altered her data storage process when it came to John. She knew two men, both the same and both different, in two separate times. One was gone, reduced to a physicist's multiverse equation, but the other retained aspects of the first while still being his own person. Time travel was fascinating and oddly affecting to Cameron.

There were times she could see both distinctly and at the same time. Her John from before and her John in the now. It was unsettling when she had to check herself to know which was which.

He emerged from the office alone. The 9mm holstered at his hip and sureness in his stride. "Come on, Cam." He gestured and she followed him to the exam room, her left leg dragging across the linoleum.

"We do not have time for this," she told him. "Albentosa's men will be after us. We should return to the United States."

"There's always someone after us," John said absently, opening drawers and cabinets. The room was just wide enough for a person to stand on either side of the center placed exam chair. "Even if metal is out there we can still take time to patch ourselves up."

Cameron noticed he had started using that expletive from the future after they buried Derek Reese. Never at her though. That was one thing John never shared with his uncle.

He glanced back. "Jump in the chair."

Deciding not to further waste time by protesting, Cameron moved to the dental chair and slid onto it. John pulled a small instrument stand closer and bent to lift her legs onto the bottom part of the chair. He quickly rounded the bulky apparatus and worked the floor levers to raise and angle the chair back.

Fumbling twice with her belt buckle, John undid her pants and pushed them down to have access to her leg injury. She easily lifted her hips to help him. After so long together—and being intimate—she still could not understand why he sometimes seemed unsure about touching her while eager to do so at other times.

Cameron frowned and watched him as he worked. Blood had soaked through her black jeans and smeared across her pale skin. Centered just over her left patella was a small bullet hole. Although a quick check told her all critical systems were undamaged, John still moved with urgency.

"Is the dentist dead?"

John wouldn't return her gaze and paused before answering. "No. Just cuffed in the office."

Was he ashamed?

Frustrated?

Why?

Because he failed to kill someone she would have?

Her programming struggled to decipher his tone. Years with the first John and another ten with this one and Cameron still couldn't understand all his moods.

John poked at the injury on her leg and interrupted her musings. "Thank you for taking a bullet for me by the way."

"It was not aimed at y—"

"Though if you had been a little faster we would be back in the States now." A very rare and slight smile quirked his lips.

"Non plasma fired projectiles do not inflict serious damage to my endoskeleton. There was no need to move out of the way."

"Yeah." John turned her leg and tried to straighten it. "But every one in a million gets in a lucky shot." Keeping her calf cupped in one hand, he slipped a pair of forceps into the wound on her kneecap. Twisting slightly, he pushed the tool all the way down to the coltan joint. He dug for a moment and then pulled the forceps free with a wet sucking sound. Clenched in its jaws was a scrap of metal barely recognizable as a bullet.

"It was lodged behind the servo," he told her. "The hydraulic pressed it into a pancake but it was still wide enough in the joint housing to jam and keep your knee from fully extending."

"Oh." Cameron looked from the bullet to him. "Lucky shot."

John dropped the forceps in the trash receptacle and reached for sutures. He dabbed the wound with rubbing alcohol and began stitching it closed.

"That is not necessary. My living tissue is not susceptible to infection." Cameron wondered why he did not know that. Other than herself, John was the most knowledgeable individual in the world about advanced cyborg science.

John didn't stop. "Well, that's good because who knows what you would catch in this place. Probably some sort of flesh eating disease."

"I cannot 'catch' necrotizing fasciitis."

That almost smile flashed again as he finished off the last stitch. "Maybe I don't want you bleeding while we stand in line to cross the border." John pushed to his feet, leaning in close to her as he did so. "Maybe this is just part of being human.

"'Sides, you've sewn me up many times; it's my turn to return the favor."

Cameron remained in the exam chair and worked on the puzzle that was John Connor while he washed up. For people and causes he cared about, he did irrational things such as this. "Do you think of me as human?" she asked.

John dried his hands on his shirt. "Put your pants on, Cam. We have to go."

She slid the blood stained jeans back over her hips. "Do you?"

"Don't ask questions you already know the answers to." John blinked once and added, "You are as human as I am."

**End**


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